Google’s Brazil chief detained by federal police over YouTube video

Officials say a video attacking a mayoral candidate should have been removed.

Fábio José Silva Coelho, the President of Google in Brazil, was detained for questioning and then released today, one day after a regional judge ordered the arrest of Coelho for refusing to remove a user-uploaded video attacking and "slandering" a mayoral candidate in the country. Google has long affirmed that it is not responsible for the content of the videos on its site.

Brazilian police questioned Coelho, but released him saying that he had a "low potential to offend" and had signed a statement agreeing to appear in front of the authorities when summoned, according to the BBC. Officially, Coelho was charged with violating an electoral code that prohibits offending the dignity of a candidate. While Google may yet prove that it is not responsible for the content, failure to remove content ordered illegal by a judge in Brazil could bring a sentence of up to a year in jail.

"Google is appealing the decision that ordered the removal of the video on YouTube because, as a platform, Google is not responsible for the content posted to its site," a spokesperson told Reuters.

YouTube's responsibility or lack thereof for content posted to its site has been scrutinized quite closely in the last few weeks, with an incendiary video shot in the US portraying Mohammed in an unflattering light sparking riots in the Middle East. A state court in São Paulo, Brazil yesterday gave Google 10 days to remove that video as well, as it has in Afghanistan, Saudia Arabia, Lybia, Egypt, Indonesia, and India. In the US, one of the actors in the offending video recently asked a court to have the video removed, but that motion was denied.